memoryLEAKS: my joy for the written word (1)

To the best of my recollections, I began writing solely with an ambition of acquiring a good handwriting. A pencil in hand, a four line notebook on my tiny desk, I set about quite this goal quite unenthusiastically, possibly only under pressure from my Paati (Grandmother). I had a book on Shankaracharya to copy from. My first attempt would surely have given a nervous breakdown to the gentleman who coined the term “calligraphy”. Without the black board before me and classmates to soothe my nerves when in doubt, writing to me was surely what America was to Columbus, minus the joy factor.

I began my Herculean task by copying the first page word by word, line by line. I must now give you a graphic explanation of what I was trying to achieve. My notebook was the usual small four line notebook available at the stationery shop almost everywhere in India. The book I was trying to re-author was atleast four times the size of my notebook. Each page in the book consisted of an illustration spanning nearly half the page and the rest was occupied by miniscule text. I can now confidently write that it would take atleast five lines of my notebook to copy one line from the giant book for a person with the goal of a semi-decent handwriting.

But, I wasn’t so convinced of my liberties then.

The first line in my book, I found to my horror, could accomodate hardly seven words from the text. Unfortunately for me, the printers had managed to print atleast fifteen in one line. And so, I waged my first war with foolscap (for details on countless other wars, contact Vasu Sir and request him for my Chemistry papers). There, there, I managed to squeeze in four more words into the already congested line. Four remaining, and three went to the third floor of line one, with the last word occupying the penthouse on the fourth floor. Thus ended ordeal one!

Copying line two was all the more difficult considering the fact the line above the one I was writing on was already cramped with words and there couldn’t be any multi-storey apartments this time. Like Shankaracharya, I found myself caught in the jaws of a crocodile, but with a lot of cajoling and coaxing, I scratched my way to Line Three.

Paati had finished cooking the day’s menu and found the time to get a situation update from me. The five lines of yet-unexplained hieroglyphics had her in a state of shock. She got herself a glass of water and introduced me to my first freedom with the written word, the Right To Continue On The Next Line When I Had Written As Much As I Could In The First.

I didn’t, at first, believe her. I took my pencil and wrote a mere five words, mere as compared to the previous fifteen. She encouraged me. I wanted to further explore my new found liberty. I scribbled just two in the next one and she calmly looked at me. I skipped the next two, and the signs of an approaching storm titled “how to avoid wasting painstakingly earned money?” did not cross the shore.

Emboldened, I let my pencil waltz its way to glory. It danced, skated, skidded and rolled across the wood pulp, determined to cross as many metres as it could, hardly so about improving the quality of its squiggles. True, this incident doesn’t call for as much celebrations as does Dhoni’s winning six off Kulasekara at the Wankhede last month, but it holds a unique indefatigable place in my heart for being primarily my first experiment with the written word and more importantly, a priceless moment of my childhood which shall never fail to etch a smile on my lips.

And thus, my tryst with the mighty pen wielded by the likes of Bharati, Shakespeare and Tagore BEGAN...

a new location and a newer name...

Greetings, dear friend!

As we prepare to flip the sheet of May in our monthly calendars and embrace the warmth and pleasantness of June, I felt the urgent need for a fresh coat of words and colors to rejuvenate this blog.

This blog was constituted during my stay at the Global Indian International School, Singapore and over the past two years at GIIS Queenstown, I have made many a post about school, my writings, life, etc. bEloW oN d tOp! derives its name from the dinner time nickname we, GIIS hostelites, coined for the boys' quarters which was the penultimate floor at 3 Mei Chin Road. The wonderful journey at GIIS Queenstown has ended, enlightening and enriching my life like no other school ever. I have completed my school education and I returned to India in early April. As I sit at the boarding gates of my college life at Madurai, I believe bEloW oN d tOp! is no longer an apt name for this blog and hence I proudly present bEloW oN d tOp! version 2.0, titled

NITWIT, BLUBBER, ODDMENT, TWEAK!

I admit I found the existing theme a little too static for my choice and despite my everlasting liking for it, I convinced myself a new theme would do no harm.

I understand the previous posts were too infrequently posted apart from being lavish with words but I hope you'll pardon this seventeen year old's obsession on describing things the lengthier and thereby, the more expressive way.

I promise to pen more literature for you to rejoice and regale with on a regular basis. Pardon my faulty memory, but I once spoke on stage - "The joy of getting a feedback, preferably positive, on your work goes unparalleled in the unappreciative world we writers live in" to a highly affirming audience. I am no Gautama Buddha myself, and I too seek to revel once in a while in your appreciation. So here I make this simple request of you. Whatever you read, please spare a moment to leave your feedback and constructive criticism. This need not only tickle my ever burgeoning desperation of a bouquet, but also may serve as an inspiration for other budding writers who chance to view this blog and your comment.

I would love to go on, but I beg your pardon once again, with months of disuse, my English has become all the more rusty and I find myself frequenting the Backspace button more than I would like to.

So, until I get back with my next post shortly, here's wishing you all the very best in whatever you do!

Enjoy life king size.

'Night, Sweetest of dreams...

Ah, before I forget, allow me to acknowledge the genius behind NBOT. I struck the idea of "Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, Tweak" from the book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and specifically, Albus Dumbledore's welcome speech to Hogwarts.

P.S: The new description owes its origin to one Mr.Saurabh Unercat, a close friend of mine, who when asked who his companions were in a Chemistry Lab experiment replied innocently "Me, myself and Saurabh!". The brain in its mystic myriad working, dug this little incident buried deep under tonnes and tonnes of PCM and thus the new description...

Do comment freely on how you like this new look in general and this post in particular...

Sathish

blogging, singapore flyer, rashida mam

ahhh! 29 minutes to go for the festival of lights. second diwali outside home! missin mam’s enna thechu kuli, appa’s parrys corner visits, lalitha athai sponsored venky darshan.

friends, romans, countrymen…here’s wishing you a joyous outburst of color and happiness!

HAPPY DIWALI!

coming back to today’s agenda, today started off quite differently. i don’t know what exactly woke me up, but surprisingly i was off my bed @ 6.45 am. YEAH! 6.45 am! unbelievable, but true. woke up, went to the washroom, admired my handsomeness, and gave wardy a heart attack when she saw me up. she was in our room to do her daily “sathish, varun, akash…wake up” chant and was pleasantly surprised to see me up and unpleasantly surprised to see manas up. dhoom, whizz, blast…first fireworks went up today morning :P

uske baad, maine kya kiya, haan 5 minutes of sleep, JUST, 5 minutes of sleep. 5 minutes slowly became 1 hour and soon it was 7.45 and varun was next to me doing “kamala kuchakum kumakum…”(ahhh! those north indian admirers of mine…these are the lines of a devotional ‘good morning’ to lord venkateshwara). jumped off bed, found chikoti, didn’t find him actually, so had to do ironing on my own. uske baad went to the shower.
“i m siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing in the raiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin…i m siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnng in the raiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin…”! then brushed teeth (harvey metcalfe types) and went to school 

school! varshini, sanjana, shinjinee, pradnya…whatta beautiful place it is :P! today’s heroine is however someone else. ishita. english patriot, sheeja mam’s biggest headache, and 3 day-in a week neighbour. ishita, the story of a girl who wants to grow up and become an english professor. lolololololol! more aptly put, what “one minute, sir” is to niru, “mam, could it also be this?” to ishita…ahhh! jokes apart, ishita is a really sweet, slightly anorexic, fun-loving person, often on the receiving end of mine and varun’s jokes and brings really delicious lunches courtesy mommy.

why is she today’s heroine? well, actually because of me. sheeja madam wanted someone to do a boring old lecture on blogging and as i was temporarily unavailable, the mantle fell on our dear sweet ishita. and ishita with all her misplaced, misdirected enthusiasm went about writing everything she found wonderful about our class including certain highly controversial statements about me. what an awesome beginning to a beautiful thursday!

me: ISHITA BETA, please change karo na
ishita: nai, it is already published, i wont change it.
me: aaanh, please na, kyun aise karte ho? you are so sweet na…
ishita: sheeja mam has already approved it…
me: array, kyun nai samajthi ho…please please please change karo na…will get you lollypop…
shinjinee(trying to act all cool): it is just a blog, sathish, relax…
me: varshi, nee sollu…sanju, tell na.
sanjana: is she mental?
varshini: change it na…

finally, after much cajoling and coaxing, made it sound less controversial.
mission accomplished.

thursday first period – assembly! aah, was a complete flop show. 21 guns became “sorry, that wasn’t 21 guns”. a bullockcartexpress thought for the day. a “iwouldratherhavebeenplayingsoccer” news. fiasco would be an understatement!
highlight of the day was nidhi, who tried to salvage 9 igcse’s falling nah...subterranean image. she tried to control their cambodia presentation from downstage, signalling the speakers to stop, trying to mix video and audio with reasonable success. otherwise, complete FAILURE!

and then started the great blogging session. GIIS blog...yelled the projector. a more outrageous statement followed “blogging goes global”! LAWL! with sworn giis loyalists swarming over, it wasn’t the best time for smart-ass comments. this realization struck everyone minus paras. and yeah, time to introduce our subject 2 of today, rashida mam! facebook supporter, ever-smiling, beautiful by looks, beautiful by heart. she began “why do you think we have started a blog?”. the whole audi fell silent. however, paras (none of the above adjectives fit him...neither beautiful, nor smiling), aajka roadside romeo, HAD to act smart. “it is because some other school came up with a better blog” romeo yelled expecting appreciation from his buddies. the volcano that was parul mam erupted. “come here, come here and continue the presentation...what do you think of yourself...some cool wannabe?” !@#$%^&*()(*&!@!@!@#!$!%!< expletives deleted>. aaahh, the poor lad, every drop of color drained out of his face after that and he shut up. for a while.

meanwhile, rashida mam dazzled us all with her “guts to face the crowd”. she calmly stood and faced all out catcalls, boos and hootings. everytime i have seen her, a smile remains forever etched on her face. as she goes about her daily routine, she infuses activity and energy into everything, everyone around her. academically, she was the real sweet invigilator during my mat sem 1 paper, class xii, where she was sweet enough to help me with sorting my paper and hardly said a word criticizing me. today, she was amazing, simply amazing. when vish questioned the need for a moderator on the much-hyped about GIIS blog to a thunderous applause, she waited for the applause to settle down answering with a decisive finality in her tone. her “you honestly think teachers are going to read your blog to find out what you are saying about them. we know what you think of us. come what may, we are your teachers. PLEASE, give us a break!” was 1000 TNT ownage! she also was one of the few teachers who rang up varun during his unfortunate chicken pox episode to wish him get well soon. hats off to you, mam!

and then began the juggernaut called ishita. her offhand speech went pretty well but for the part where she got caught in the dream world of class xii a, where we respect her english prudence and wisdom. her “no hooting” please was well, ROTFLMAO but overall her speech was worth a ‘8.5/10’ (overshot word limit, controversial statements, more like an article)

eventually we dispersed and met again for our chairman atul termunikar’s talk. this was a really exciting and entertaining lecture with students pouring in their own tragic tales and srividhya mam making a list of “vellilava...vechukaren” people(me, prash!). he gave us several strategies to cope up with studies and it made everyone assembled feel more confident about taking exams and feeling normal about their weaknesses. thank you sir for that!

aaah...finally singapore flyer! mrs.prema...sweet, cute, old aunty who came to school today. a planned talk on “stress management” veered disastrously off course after she went into a tirade on pernakan museum, evolution walk, and of course, masala dosa. her adventures in the mystic land that was singapore left the audience clearly unimpressed but what impressed me was what she was trying to convey throughout her tale. “when faces with stress, bow to it. if someone asks you to do something, do it” that’s the best way out of stress, she told us. short, sweet, simple :)!

and then the bell rang and the travel & tourism talk came to a much awaited end.

‘happy diwali’s rented the air.

it is diwali, time to celebrate, time to hog on sweets, time to dress up and time to visit lakshminarayan temple!

time to burst crackers, time to chill out with friends, time to call up relatives and wish “happy diwali”!

surely a time to regale and relax...

so bon voyage, my reader!

happy diwali and good night.

ciao.

senior school INVESTITURE

It was the glorious morning of the 19th of August, 2010. The Global Indian International School was yet again in a fervid grip of excitement, enthusiasm and exhilaration. It was the same nervous energy that surged through one and all when Barack Obama took over the reins of the United States of America on 4th January 2009. The very same outburst of emotion when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took over the papacy on 7th of May 2005 and precisely that swelling of happiness and pride in your heart when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru took over from Lord Mountbatten as the Prime Minister of Independent India! The elation of having found a leader, the reassurance that we had someone experienced to look up to and seek advice in times of crisis, the promise of more prosperous times, and of course the hope that together we would all climb greater heights. Euphoria unlimited!

Today, we felt it all. The period of Sede Vacente, the days of the empty throne, was finally over. The man who stole a thousand hearts, he who was a living symbol of responsibility, intelligence and discipline, his whose voice could inspire the masses and his whose leadership would take us to an era where the flag of Global Indian International School would keep soaring high, the Crown Prince and his courtiers were going to be coronated today! It was the Senior School Investiture Ceremony and hundreds of students turned up to watch the newly elected Student Council being sworn in.

Very soon, the auditorium was a throng of yellow, blue, red and saffron, the colors of the different houses of the Global Indian International School. However, the true heroes of the day were elsewhere. They were the over fifty girls and boys, smartly dressed in blazers, lined up and awaiting their moment of glory. Our heroes, our role models, our mentors! Our very own Student Council comprising of young leaders amongst us!

For the teachers, today marked the culmination of a long drawn process of interviewing students, hearing their passionate dreams for the school, separating the wheat from the chaff and of course, completing the onerous responsibility of deciding those students who would carry the responsibility of leading the school for the next academic year. And they had done their job with cent per cent perfection! Here were the fruits of over a month’s time of hard work. Fifty-three dedicated, sincere, responsible students, each an excellent blend of talent and leadership qualities, all set to shoulder the enormous responsibilities that occurred in the functioning of the institution!

Leading them all was IB Year II student and one of the finest debaters of our time, Head Boy Sudip Roy. On a scholarship in GIIS, Sudip Roy is an excellent student, fine orator, skilled writer and exudes an aura of humility, diplomacy and passion, precisely the qualities demanded of a true leader. Complementing him at the top job was Head Girl Radhika Kannan, also from IB Year II. If there was ever anyone who could sing, dance, debate and of course, beat the IB on a day to day basis, it is Radhika! The Student Cabinet also comprised of Head Boy-look alike Subir Roy and Nishi Anand who took over as Cultural Secretaries. Shyam Sundar Subramaniam and Prerna Gupta took charge as Sports Secretaries while Shruti and Abhishek Aiyer assumed the posts of Student Council Secretaries. The House Captains and House Prefects of the four houses Orchid, Sunflower, Chrysanthemum and Hibiscus, the Editorial Board and the various Committees were also sworn in.

In his speech, the Principal Mr.GSS Rao expressed his congratulations to the newly elected Student Cabinet and administered the Oath. The Oath, which was taken by the Student Council, is a declaration of its resolve and commitment to work resolutely and selflessly towards the smooth functioning of the school. Mr.Rao also thanked the various Coordinators and the other teachers in the Selection Panel for having carefully chosen such a reliable, efficient and skilled set of students to lead the school and ended his address by wishing the Council the very best of luck in all its future endeavors.

P.S: This is the article I penned for the GIIS August newsletter, my first since I joined the ranks of the school Editorial Board :)

my expectations from the education imparted in my school

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." Albert Einstein

Since time immemorial, education has remained above the influence of those being educated. The educational system has ruthlessly squashed the dreams and hopes of students alike by remaining adamantly change-proof. Through this essay, I list a few expectations of mine which I hope to be seen incorporated in the present educational structure.

First and foremost, I seek a method of education where learning isn’t centered upon the whims and wishes of my teacher. I look forward to that Utopia, where I have an option of deciding what I would be taught, and how I would be coached. It is sheer insanity when I’m forced to learn Chemistry by rote memory, when my mind is playing with Algebra. Instead of having a common syllabus for all students which requires me to slog for hours with a concept I find least appealing, I would like to do something which I find fascinating, something which correlates with my likes, interests and ambition.

Edith Ann said "I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework." And I’m no different. I do not aspire for a Professor Kalam. All I ask for is a teacher who makes the class lively by her pep talks, informative by her knowledge troves, amicable by her humor and exceptional by her distinctive teaching techniques. She must drive in me the zest to be punctual rather than reprimand me for my laziness. So affable and unbiased must she be, such that even the most reticent student feels free to speak out his mind.

“Teach him it is better to be fail, than to cheat” Abraham Lincoln once wrote. Keith Townsend, the protagonist in The Fourth Estate would have exclaimed “BULLS EYE!” .It isn’t only the likes of Ishaan Awasthi that get put off by constant hammering due to abysmal performances, everyone does. My dear tutors must lay more emphasis on the learning that happens than the CBSE 0.01% Merit List. Why not try to analyze what caused my failure rather than putting me down in the “We’ll not issue him a hall ticket!” list?

No, I do not seek a school where I’m entitled to plush, air-conditioned, cozy classrooms with HP Laptops adorning each desk. The least the school must provide is an invigorating learning environment with essential technological infrastructure. Educational CDs, challenging quizzes, articulate seminars, animation films are more effective and etch a lasting impression in the students’ minds rather than monotonous Dr.ABCD’s , B.Tech, M.Tech, M.S, Ph.D, lectures. The brain dreads words, adores pictures. Technology-aided-education is the order of the day. My school must embrace it with open arms!

My teachers ought not to bring in occasionally a dose of “learning-by-doing” merely to please the meddlesome Education Officer. I require to be allowed to imagine, invent and innovate with my theory. And all I anticipate from my educators is encouragement and the offer to place their brains at my disposal. A poor bargain if I conjured up an Einstein-like invention, isn’t it?!?

Education in 2008 has come to mean quoting the entire NCERT textbook series back to front. When will this madness stop? I needn’t possess a 4 GB RAM for my brain yet I may be surprisingly scintillating with the 64 squares. My school must assure me of my overall development rather than selective progress. I expect my school to support and nurture my co-curricular talents. I may not be an ‘IIT Extended Merit List’ ranker, but why shouldn’t I be another Kasparov?

Finally, I do not advocate for a fatwa against sticklers for written works. Surely, knowledge is what that matters, not the number of neatly covered record notebooks stacked in your cupboard. I’m not against the system of homework but I would definitely benefit more if I were allowed time to explore beyond the boundaries of the known. Of course, I would love to have beyond-the-textbook assignments set to rack my mind. But, for heaven’s sake, no ‘Wikipedia Ctrl C + Ctrl V’ projects or ‘Copy down your entire book’ assignments please!

Barack Obama has succeeded under the banner ‘Change- We Can Believe In’. Will I?

[This is an essay I penned in Class IX. My beloved Vice-Principal Mrs.Rani-Rajan blasted me left, right and center for taking on at the Education Officer (who I realized quite late, was the person holding the competition!!!). Anyway, Article 14/57 of the Indian Constitution guarantees me the Right to Freedom of Thought and Speech...so Ma'am please save your breath!]

opalescent orchid

Friends, Romans and Countrymen!
I come to bury Chrysanthemum, not to praise it;
The failures of my House often live long after it;
The achievements are oft interred in its bones;
So let it be with Orchid…the noble Sunflower
Hath told you it deserved to win the House Cup;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously will Sunflower answer it;
Here, under the leave of Hibiscus and the rest,
(For Hibiscus is an honorable House;
So are they all; all honorable Houses)
Come I to speak in Orchid’s defense;
Orchid is talented, awesome and accomplished;
But Chrysanthemum says it will win the House Cup;
And Chrysanthemum is an honorable House;
It has brought many trophies to Queenstown,
Whose ransoms did the galleries fill;
Doesn’t this in Orchid seem promising?
When Orchid cried, Hibiscus wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;
Yet Hibiscus says it will win the House Cup;
And Hibiscus is an honorable House;
You all did see during Sports Day
Orchid was thrice presented with the rolling trophy;
Which thrice we did accept; isn’t this encouraging?
Yet Sunflower says it will win the House Cup;
And sure, Sunflower is an honorable House;
I speak not to disprove what the other Houses told you;
But here I’m to speak what I do know;
You all did love Orchid once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to support for it?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the blue there with Orchid,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

mark zuckerberg is my god, facebook is my religion!

The signpost read Mountain View, California. Nestled in the breezy environment of the Charleston Park, the five hundred thousand square feet compound was the Promised Land for any software techie. To the dim-witted postman, it was 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway. To the rest of the world, it was Googleplex. With all esteem and veneration, the Googleplex! Or the worldwide headquarters of the Google Corporation! And ruling it was technology czar Larry Page.

Tonight, he was a proud man. His Google Earth research team had improvised the existing software such that users could now view the planet as it had been 24 hours before…A MERE 24 HOURS PREVIOUSLY. A perfectionist by birth, Larry was determined to ensure that this application turned out flawless. He typed his first query “Vatican City” and two seconds later, he could hear the bells outside St.Peter’s Square clanging twelve. Great! His second request took him to the Ashes at the Lord’s. Fantastic!

To triple-ensure the infallibility of the software, he keyed in his last and final query “Maryland Sports Centre” and two seconds later, the image beamed on Larry’ desk. Larry’ brows furrowed. His smile creased. He zoomed into the image and the frustration persisted. He had expected to see youngsters cycling; playing baseball, working out and so on but what stared at him was empty courts, rusty sports equipment and a few solitary trees. This set Larry thinking. Was it a technical glitch? Possible. Or did it convey something more serious? Are playgrounds becoming more and more desolate by the day? Are kids no longer playing?

Brussels, New Delhi, Jakarta…the playfields in these cities wore the same deserted look. It confirmed Larry’s hunch that this situation went beyond a common software glitch. Children were indeed keeping off parks and race tracks. The software proved it beyond any doubt. But why?

Could it be studies? Feasible…but 24*7 marathon studying would drive the most sincere and fanatical of students crazy! Parental coercion? One kid, yes, ten, possible, hundreds, might be…but thousands across the world? Preposterous!

Or was it simply that youngsters no longer cared for the dust, sweat and blood of the play areas? Has the progress and advancement of the modern era come to mean an age of lethargy, inactivity and indoor imprisonment? Have adventure, exploration, sports and games taken a backseat? Three Olympics down the line, will we ever have another Michael Phelps, another Nadal or Usain Bolt? Will we, ladies and gentlemen?

Orkut, Connect, Myspace, Friendfinder, this is how the world communicates today. With the world going digital, our lives have increasingly become computer-centred. Computers at home, computers at office, computers at school, life seems to have been redefined to running from one silicon box to another. The joys of love, the bloom of sunflowers, the frustrations of road-side traffic, are our kids missing them all? With the coming of the Internet, our games are hosted on online servers; our conversations communicated over Skype, our sleepovers on Yahoo chatrooms…all from the comfort of our bed. Ought we ignore the loving care and affection of our family and seek instead the pokes and testimonials of strangers? Must our gaiety be dictated by number of notifications we receive? Should our popularity be determined by the number of profile visits we have had? Have we started leading two lives…a physical one on Earth and a more fascinating demanding one online? Are we slowly sinking into this virtual quagmire which we have created? Are we?

No, no and no! Ladies and Gentlemen, the woeful stinking stories that we’ve heard till now is a classic example of the human mind’s ability to make a mountain out of a molehill. Stay off the net, lose out on its countless advantages, let’s go back to living in caves and living off trees…surely, the words of a dogmatic individual, bigoted, parochial and obstinate. Furthermore, it represents our inability to utilize the benefits offered by science and technology and our nagging predilection to blame everything around us for our failures.

Freidrich Schiller once opined “Time flies on restless pinions - constant never”. How very true! Amidst our fast-paced lives, rushing from one place to another, meeting one deadline after another, we rarely find the time to socialize or spend time with one’s family. The fact that we live in nuclear families scattered across the world does little to help us. Enter social networking! Emails, instant messaging, tweets, connect with the world anywhere anytime. All this and more, just with an email! And the icing on the cake…it can be done alongside homework, assignments, and school projects. Calculus and Classmates can be real compatible!

Cocktail parties, Saturday night sleepovers, beach holidays, Pottermania fan clubs…how many friendships can these forge? Ten, fifty, hundred? Log on to facebook, update your profile, reach out to people, you’ll be astounded by the number of people you meet. Shared passions, mutual friends, common interests…social networking exposes you to the lifestyles and cultures of hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. Cousins at Harvard, dads at Dubai, friends from New Zealand…social networking brings them all straight to your home, to your desk, to you simplifying the distance, strengthening your relations. Just as if we are with them, breathing the air, walking the road, living their lives…

Half our evenings and most of our nights are spent Orkutting and Facebooking. This virtual presence can serve as more than a mere distraction for students. With teachers joining sites such as Facebook, schooling can take to an all-new level. Educators can merge academics with technology and make education all the more worthwhile. Teachers can be more attentive to every student’s needs, attend to their queries faster, and the teacher-student barrier can be overcome. The Oracle ThinkQuest Initiative is an example of how social networking, contrary to popular opinion, can actually aid and enforce education.

“Gossip-machine! Rumor funnel! Needless distraction”…

Ladies and Gentlemen, these are some fancy titles social networking has earned for itself. True, social networking does offer a platform to discuss glitz, glamour and girls. However, that’s not all that there is! Online websites, if properly used, can make people aware, educate them, empower them. Green drives, global issues, health advisories, consumer rights…social networking has carried such thoughtful messages too. Twitter, for example, has changed the destiny of a nation. Not India, not China, not America, but a remote republic in Eastern Europe. Moldova. A nation where governmental autocracy combined with police atrocities threatened to bury the seed of democracy forever. It would have succeeded but for Twitter. Twitter organized the revolutionaries; it lent a voice to them, spread their tale far and wide, and brought international attention to the debacle in Moldova. Thus, a mere website turned out to be the unifying force behind millions exposing barbarism and bringing in democracy. Does social networking still deserve the cheap tags we have coined for it?

What would you do if you wanted to reach out to hundreds of millions of people across the world overnight? Despatch postcards? Make phone calls? Front page advertisements on the Strait Times? Or simply go online? Knowledge is power. Information is the true liberator. In this information-hungry world, social networking sites remain a source of extensive information. From the NBA to the Indian Premier League, everyone remains convinced of the reach of social networking. Barack Obama’s election campaign, NUS’s undergraduate admissions, PETA’s animal welfare plans, social networking is the solution! Employers searching for prospective employees, girls looking for guys, imagine all this and more minus social networking…Impossible!

Opportunities don’t just walk one’s way. They are created. Social networking offers its users a platform to exhibit their talents. Facebook and Friendster combined have discovered more poets in this world than all English lecturers put together. In online portals, the stage is set, the mikes switched on, the audience ready…all that is required is you. Show this world what you can do and you’ll be stunned by the heights it can take you!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in an age where it isn’t just what we know that matters. As a matter of fact, who we know, who knows us are frankly more important. And social networking sites do exactly that! They create a new world around you. A world of countless opportunities, a world of infinite friends, a world of limitless knowledge, and a world beyond cultural and national divides! Let not the fears of couch potato-ism deny social networking its true worth! Let us welcome the opportunities of the 21st century with a broader mind!

Mark Zuckerberg is our God, and Facebook indeed our religion!